"I'd rather be exhausted and rich than have a comfy 9-5, driving a hyundai and flying coach. " you sound like one too...your values are warped..too much MTV cribs and reality TV... Wall Street..the place where many very smart driven people, who could be using these skills and energies to work to do something productive in their lives ,but instead work to make money off of the buying and selling of others.. unbridled greed and the consumeristic behaviors that come from it ....
I'm guessing that the thread title has something of a "survivorship bias" thing going. I wonder what the burnout/attrition rate is? And I have no doubt that, initially, the burnt toast brigade was equally gung-ho about making it to the higher rungs of that pyramid-shaped organization chart. But those pesky pyramids have a way of limiting most of the minnows with visions of becoming big fish. And depending on the competitiveness of your working environment (we are talking about Wall Street, after all), it can bring out interesting qualities in co-workers with similar visions. Free-for-all, anyone? I wonder how much the overworked, but passed over, husks are making when you break it down on a hourly basis? It's hard not to be impressed with those who really made it in that environment. But what are the odds? And as for that average paycheck, I think that the median paycheck might be more telling.
What do you do that's so fucking beneficial to the world? And what's wrong with wanting to be successful?, if everyone settled with mediocrity where would the world be right now?
"if everyone settled with mediocrity where would the world be right now ? " I would guess that we may not have , Multi National Corporate Imperialsim, War in Iraq, an unbalanced economy, a culture in ths crapper, irresponsible levels of debt, widepsread unethical business conduct..Paris Hilton, Donald trump..etc....
The top 20 investors / traders on wall street earn more than the combined earnings of 500,000 office staff. Put that in perspective....
I think you left out modern technology. And you never answered what you do for a living, Mother Theresa.
I don't know if your numbers are accurate, but that's why I think that a median paycheck number would be much more useful and informative than an average figure.